Olivia Munn says 'Newsroom' director tried to sabotage role
- - - Olivia Munn says 'Newsroom' director tried to sabotage role
Taijuan Moorman, USA TODAY July 3, 2025 at 1:42 PM
Olivia Munn is opening up about her experience on "The Newsroom" and a director who tried to "ruin" her career after a dispute on set.
The actress, during a June 30 appearance on the "Armchair Expert" podcast, told host Dax Shepard she got a positive response to her role as Sloan Sabbith in Season 1 of the HBO news drama. However, in the second season, the directors began getting heavy-handed with their notes for her. She said one director in particular tried to force her to carry the romantic storyline between her character and Thomas Sadoski's character Don Keefer, "but only on my side."
"(He said) 'Can you snuggle up to him or flirt with him, or can you give him a kiss?' And this is in the middle of (my character) working," Munn, 45, said.
Olivia Munn attends "An Unforgettable Evening" Benefiting the Women's Cancer Research Fund at The Beverly Hilton on April 28, 2025, in Beverly Hills, California.
Olivia Munn shuts down Aaron Rodgers family rift rumors: 'Nothing to do with me'
In another instance, Sloan finds out Don used the information she gave him for insider trading, leading her to get upset. But the directors told Munn, "I don't think that you're that angry with him. It's kind of funny."
When she put her foot down in another scene, the director told her she was coming off "forceful in strong," which was "what I wanted," Munn said. She recalled walking off, and a producer coming to her afterward because they "heard from the director there's a bit of an issue."
"I'll tell you I was happy with what I did instead because ... people would have been like, 'Oh look at her character. Look how she's playing it.' And they wouldn't even care if I even said it was him. So I just stayed to my convictions," the former "The Daily Show" correspondent said.
Munn said she was going out for a movie role when this feud resurfaced.
"My manager calls me and says, 'Hey, you're going to get the role. But first, I guess there's another director who they know and he says that on 'The Newsroom' you were late all the time and really combative,'" she said. "I lived seven minutes from there. I was never late."
She said she immediately knew who made the claim.
"He just was trying to bash me," Munn. "And then I still got the role, but I will always remember that just because of our conflicts of how we approached a role, he wanted to ruin my chances of getting anything else."
There were nearly a dozen male directors on the Emmy-winning series, which ended in 2014.
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Olivia Munn: 'Newsroom' director tried to 'ruin' her career
Source: AOL Entertainment
